Recently I received an invitation from the Native Plant Trust that forced me to acknowledge how very lucky I am to live in Norwich, CT. The Native Plant Trust owns and operates Nasami Farm, a native plant nursery in western Massachusetts, six rare plant sanctuaries in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont and Garden in the Woods, a renowned native plant and botanical garden in Framingham, Massachusetts.

The invitation was to make an appointment for a visit, or a Winter Walk through their curated woods between Mid-October and Mid-March supervised by one of their staff or trained volunteers.

In Norwich, CT, every single resident and visitor has an open invitation to take advantage of a little over 500 acres of non-curated, some native and all wildly growing woods with and without trails, 365 days a year, from dawn to dusk. Everyone is invited to walk, run or even hop one or more of the five maintained trails or to create a trail of their own. To walk with others or in solitude. The choice is always yours. With thanks and reverence to community members who had the foresight to see the importance of having access to green space Norwich has something special.

What Norwich, CT does not have, and could certainly use is a dedicated group, ready, willing, trained and able to take on some of the same or at least similar responsibilities as the Native Plant Trust.

The Native Plant Trust is very specific in their mission, to monitor, protect and restore rare and endangered plants, to collect and bank seeds for biological diversity, detect and control invasive species, conduct botanical and horticulture research, and educate the public, from home gardeners to professional land managers.

In my view, Norwich needs a group with a mission to monitor, and protect its plants, to collect and bank seeds for the promotion of biological diversity, to identify, detect and control invasive species, and to educate the public on these topics.

Norwich has a number of gardening groups all with very similar structures and goals. I am not suggesting creating yet another group but joining the groups together. Creating a group with a vision of the City of Norwich as a whole with sub-committees to focus on specific areas, villages or parks. Sub-committees willing to lend each other a hand as projects and goals take substance and form. First on the agenda is to remove the ego’s that prevent us from working together and in Norwich that may take a while.

In the meantime, as I dream of a City of residents united and working toward a shared goal we have the acreage of Mohegan Park and a dozen or more other smaller parks, greens and parades located throughout the city to enjoy each and every day throughout the year.

Thank you for reading and sharing my history and Norwich Community blog freely with your family or friends or anyone you think might be interested or in a position to take on some of the suggested projects. Don't hesitate to contact me for further information. I am happy to pass along anything I can. Together we can make a difference. Email comments on this blog to berylfishbone@yahoo.com View my past columns at http://www.norwichbulletin.com/section/blogs

Do you read the magazines and newsletters from the various organizations that you belong to? Organizations for example such as AARP or AAA? I don’t. They arrive in the mail and usually go straight into the recycling bin.

I like, use or support the organization enough to pay fees or dues but would be quite content if they never sent me another magazine or newsletter ever again. It is the repetition I object to. Its always the same topics in the articles. The same advertising. The same pleas for money to support the cause. Good heavens writers, editors and publishers examine what you are sending out. When was the last time you ran an article on that very same topic? Go ahead take a look at your past year.

Politics in Texas and California are in every issue. I live in Connecticut and have absolutely no influence in what residents in those two states do.

Are boomers not as mentally astute? The studies say that if the brain is exercised regularly the person will retain its strength and its possible for it to get stronger. Your articles on this subject are mind numbing.

You should have planned better for your retirement when you were in your twenties. Planning for retirement at 60 to retire at 65 is not the best plan. Who knew?

There are companies and individuals looking to separate you from your money for things you don’t want or use. They should look at their own advertising. A help button for only $20. a month. Life insurance. How about a computer designed for the aged? Interested in a smart phone plan? Don’t bother comparing car insurance, we will tell you what you need and make certain you get the best price. How to read the date codes on bread and other items that you can’t read without the aid of a microscope. Sign over your well invested money and we will make it grow faster for only a small charge that will shrink the bottom line of what you receive. Do you know how to return items you have bought? This company will do it for you for only a small fee that is twice the amount you paid for the item. You don’t really understand your own medical conditions or the type of medicare and medical insurance you need. This company will hook you up with the proper coverage so that absolutely nothing you think you have paid coverage for will in fact be covered and every doctor and medical facility within a 100 mile radius will be out of network. And don’t forget showers. Everywhere I look there is another advertisement for a walk in shower for the aged.

My complaint isn’t that all of this stuff isn’t useful, its the repetition of it. Find writers capable of writing about a variety of topics. How about how to cut family recipes from quantities to feed four or more to two? How about an article on how to travel by train with ease and comfort? Where are the best places to post notices for finding someone to mow the lawn or shovel the walk? Instructions on making steps safer for the visually impaired. Taste buds change as you age, what tastes better or worse? Fashions change with age, body type as well as height and health issues. What items should your wardrobe include?

OK my rant is over now. Thanks for reading.

Thank you for reading and sharing my history and Norwich Community blog freely with your family or friends or anyone you think might be interested or in a position to take on some of the suggested projects. Don't hesitate to contact me for further information. I am happy to pass along anything I can. Together we can make a difference. Email comments on this blog to berylfishbone@yahoo.com View my past columns at http://www.norwichbulletin.com/section/blogs

This is a call to action and a challenge to the Norwich Bulletin and the Day newspapers. Follow the example of the New York Times, (See In the Rising Voices of 10 Young Poets, a Call for Change October 9, 2020) and create a space in your papers for promising young poets, under the age of 30, to showcase their skills and talents as they respond to all that is happening in America.

I suggest removing the criteria of race by encouraging young writers of our multi- cultural, ethnic and racial community to speak up, and write what is on their minds and in their hearts. Not just promising black voices but, Chinese, Puerto Rican, Haitian, Middle Eastern, Polish and all voices. Feature different authors weekly. Believe it or not publishing this type of writing was a common practice for local newspapers until the 1950’s when it fell out of fashion. Lets bring it back.

The New York Times used their online capabilities by once a week focusing on the works of poets 12 – 19 years of age and how they are responding the current climate of America. It may be new to most adults but it is the norm for them. How do they see our world? How do they view our and more importantly their future. The Times project includes interviews and recordings of the poets reading their works. Many different departments and desks collaborate to make each episode unique and special.

The Times idea was generated internally from Jaspal Riyait, an art director with a 20 year old son coping with the present worlds turmoil thru art. According to Ms. Riyait, “We started looking at a very particular time when young minds are molding and forming and not being influenced but being an influencer. And I think that was really important.”

Neither the Norwich Bulletin nor the Day need to reach across the country to different groups like the Times did. As local papers you can reach out to the local schools, groups and libraries that may already have writers, poets and artists looking and waiting for an opportunity to have their voices in its various ways heard.

Both the Norwich Bulletin and the Day have magazines searching for new readers and subscribers. Here is an opportunity to enhance that search, to create a community voice, to speak and be heard by the next generation of readers and writers. The artists, poets and writers, you select to give voice to locally may be heard by others who can help grow and expand their horizons. Horizons that may be regional or national competitions, performances, or competitions at various festivals. Your newspaper or magazine can become known as where someone got their work first published. You may become synonymous as being the first place a voice of tomorrow should be heard.

Will the topics of the articles that appear daily in your newspaper be an influence to their work? Will they reflect the people they see every day? How do they see their lives? Their challenges? Their futures?

Publishers and Editors of the Norwich Bulletin and the Day, are you up to the challenge?

Thank you for reading and sharing my history and Norwich Community blog freely with your family or friends or anyone you think might be interested or in a position to take on some of the suggested projects. Don't hesitate to contact me for further information. I am happy to pass along anything I can. Together we can make a difference. Email comments on this blog to berylfishbone@yahoo.com

I have a love/hate relationship with politics. I love participating in it, voicing my opinion, casting my vote, working toward my view of a better place to live, work and leave behind. I hate discussing it because we all do not share the same definitions of terms, words, and outlooks.

Many of us have learned our terms not from reading history and forming our own definitions from our understanding of what we have read,  but from television, movies, newspapers and magazines written by people who already share our viewpoint or we wouldn’t be watching or reading their work.  So here, with the help of dictionaries, the internet and Wikipedia (Ugh. I hate to admit I resorted to that.) are a few definitions that have worked their way into some recent discussions.

Marxism is a political and economic theory where a society has no classes. Every person within the society works for a common good, and class struggle is theoretically gone.

Hitlerism. Hitler’s views and commentary depended on his needs, claims and circumstances.  He claimed he was only against “Jewish Marxism,”  but there was also focus on antisemitism, anticommunism, antiparliamentarianism, German Living Space, “Aryan race” superiority, and German nationalism and a few more I can’t put into less than 1,000 words.

Anti-semitism is hostility to, prejudice, or discrimination against people of the Jewish religion.
Anti-communism is any political movement against communism.

Communism is very like Marxism. Private property and a profit-based economy is replaced with public ownership. Major manufacturing, production, mining, farming, all natural resources are communal and government operated or controlled.

Fascism is a right-wing government ruled by an authoritarian leader. There is only one political party, and only one state. All matters including economic difficulties are responded to with preparation for war.

Parliamentary System – The head of state is not the head of the government. The executive branch must have the confidence of and is accountable to its legislature.

Presidential System – The head of state is the head of the government but the executive does not derive  its powers from the legislature but from its voters.

Anti-parliamentarianism , can generally claim these basic disadvantages for the parliamentary systems:
    • Legislative flip-flopping The ability for strong parliamentary governments to ‘push’ legislation through with the ease of fused power systems.
    • Party fragmentation. An advantage of presidential systems is their ability to allow and accommodate more diverse viewpoints.
Of course there are more types of governments and many more definitions than the ones I have given here. This is just to serve as a reminder that in America we all have the rights and privileges of choosing which definitions we prefer use, follow and discuss.  We have the freedom to have and share our opinions. It is our right to ignore the opinions of others.

I won’t use the correct quote but, “Opinions are like noses. Everyone has one.” and “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, even if its wrong.”

Thank you for reading and sharing my history and Norwich Community blog freely with your family or friends or anyone you think might be interested or in a position to take on some of the suggested projects. Don’t hesitate to contact me for further information. I am happy to pass along anything I can. Together we can make a difference. Email comments on this blog to berylfishbone@yahoo.com View my past columns at http://www.norwichbulletin.com/section/blogs

I heard it on NPR. At the start of the Covid pandemic a man in Montreal attached a locked box with a slit opening marked, “Requests to the Universe.” to a fence. Then slowly as time went on quietly and without fanfare some tiny and some large slips of paper began to appear in the box when he checked. He would empty the box very early in the morning or very late in the evening so he wouldn’t be seen. Some of the requests to the universe were in envelopes and some on scraps of paper or sales receipts. There were hopes in pencil, pen, crayon and marker. Some of the requests were deeply personal. Asking for health, rent money, a new job, recovery, an end to a pain, or an end to taxes. Some were prayers for an end to the pandemic, world peace, or a cleaner environment. Others wanted a specific object such as a new computer game, toy, or a new car. There were all manner of hopes, dreams, wishes and prayers.

Each request was deeply personal and the man could tell it was heartfelt and meaningful to the writer. Even the ones that appeared to be humorous had to be thought about and obviously meant something to the author.

Do you think if a lot of individuals asked for the same thing, such as an end to world hunger there might be a response from the universe? Is the rising water table of the oceans the answer from the universe for more water? 

If there was such a box located near you, what would you write on a slip of paper to drop in the box? Would you drop just one request to the universe in the box? Would you go out of your way just to slip your request in the box? Would you make more than one request to the universe? Do you ever now make requests to the universe? Has the universe ever replied? Was it the reply you expected or hoped for? Is it right to ask the universe for help with a personal problem?

Thank you for reading and sharing my history and Norwich Community blog freely with your family or friends or anyone you think might be interested or in a position to take on some of the suggested projects. Don’t hesitate to contact me for further information. I am happy to pass along anything I can. Together we can make a difference. Email comments on this blog to berylfishbone@yahoo.com View my past columns at http://www.norwichbulletin.com/section/blogs

Shout out to Ace Hardware of Norwich, at 148 W Town Street for sending a reminder about feeding the birds in the cool and cold months.

Different birds are attracted by different foods so be sure to hang your feeders at a fair distance so the feathered can find the foods they prefer easily. I don’t set out food in the summer. There is more than enough food for them to find fresh and growing in my yard. I do put out fresh water as there is not a natural source close by.

Feeding the birds though is not limited to just feeding the ones you like. Noisy birds, messy birds, and scavenger birds may also be attracted to your feeders. I am not going to mention the other fuzzy, bushy, and naked tailed critters that may enjoy the food and the ground droppings.

Last spring I purchased a bag of mixed seed and grain food that had a seed one bird in particular loved. I am not sure which particular seed it was but I can go on for an hour describing the seeds he/she rejected and tossed to the ground. The seeds on the ground attracted the little birds that didn’t mind eating on the ground. When the hawks were hunting all the little birds would scurry to the bushes and hide in silence. But then the mice might sneak in to dine on their selection of the cast-off seeds. I do not know why they had no fear of the hawks. (The cat never bothered the mice or the birds but the moles and the voles were another story. They didn’t eat the seeds but the cat loved to hunt them.)

I wish something would hunt the ground hog and the squirrels. My yard has the best tasting grubs and clover in the area. I know this to be a fact because the number and size of the visiting ground hogs and rabbits has increased substantially this year. For years we seldom saw a rabbit, but this year they are plentiful. My point to all these tales is your food attracts multitudes of animals and may also bring some plant additions to your yard as well.

Keep the food source fresh and replace the feed at least 2x each week. Toast and bread crumbs alone do not give the birds the nutrition they need to stay warm and healthy. Provide fresh water for both drinking and bathing. Surprisingly birds like to be clean and bathe all year round.

Wash your hands before you clean and fill your feeders and then afterwards.

Store your seeds in clean, airtight containers. A couple of years ago I got a tiny version of the old style metal trash can because it was the right size for the bag of seed I was using and it was cute! In less than two weeks the raccoon’s had figured out how to take the top off then the battle of the bungy cords began. At first my seed was safe. Then as the seed lowered, they would topple the can to get the lid to pop off. Then it was chewing the cord until it snapped and they had free access to all the seed they could eat. A lot! Now I keep the seed in glass jars with tightly screwed on lids.

Suet blocks stay in the back corner of the freezer all year round. Every other year or so I will buy fresh suet to melt and make my own blocks and then I remember why I buy it. Making it yourself is smelly and its an odor I don’t care for. If you make your own, well good for you. Watch who eats and steals your peanut butter pine cones. You know you make and hang them at least once a every couple of years so just admit it. If there is another Covid lockdown, consider stringing popcorn for the birds and animals. Quarter inch slices of fresh oranges are attractive to the birds in winter too. If you are amused by the bushy tailed menaces of the yard and forest at least make them work for the unsalted peanuts. They are truly little nerds and seem to like solving problems with dedication and determination.

There are a variety of bird counts all year round and participation continues to get easier each year. Look out the window and count the birds at the feeder for in most counts 15 minutes at a time. Enter your counts on-line and see other areas, towns, states, countries or your neighbors I enjoy the Christmas Count in December and the Backyard Bird Count on Presidents Day Weekend in February. Do you have a favorite? This is a great activity for the very little as they learn to count. Its fun to do with friends and family at the same time in different locations. I do it with friends in Iowa, Michigan and Virginia. We call each other, and sit at our respective windows, count the birds we see, sip coffee and enjoy a great visit. This year I will miss a nursing home visit with a friend and participating in the bird count watching their bird feeders.

To quote Ace, “Make the birds tweet about your home.”

Thank you for reading and sharing my history and Norwich Community blog freely with your family or friends or anyone you think might be interested or in a position to take on some of the suggested projects. Don't hesitate to contact me for further information. I am happy to pass along anything I can. Together we can make a difference. Email comments on this blog to berylfishbone@yahoo.com View my past columns at http://www.norwichbulletin.com/section/blogs